The general workflow

In Chapter 1, Introducing PowerShell DSC, we covered a high-level overview of DSC and introduced the three phases of DSC use. We also covered the MOF file and its importance in the grand scheme of DSC usage. Since we have already established the "why" of these concepts, we will now dive into the details of each phase.

What follows won't be a step-by-step process; this will be handled in Chapter 3, DSC Configuration Files. Instead, what we discuss here will be more explanatory and might make you move around a bit. Concepts that are introduced may not be fully explained until later, when supporting concepts are fleshed out. DSC is a very modular product, each module a separate entity that is also interdependent with other entities. This makes explaining some concepts a chicken and egg scenario, so we will try our best to reference other sections as they apply.

The following diagram shows the Authoring, Staging, and Execution phases of the DSC workflow. You will notice that it does not look much different than the push or pull model diagrams. This similarity is on purpose, as the architecture of DSC allows its usage in either a push or pull deployment to be the same until the execution phase. This reduces the complexity of your configuration files and allows them to be used in either deployment mode without modification. Let's take a look at the entire DSC workflow: